Page 207 of The Sin Binder's Destiny

The cat, perched on her shoulder like some judgmental demon, just stares at me like evenhe’sdisappointed.

Fair.

Calla raises her blade, glowing and hissing in the air like it’s trying to remember my internal anatomy.

Lucien’s already there, jaw tight, hand out. Caspian presses his palm flat against the arc of the pillar’s rune. Riven draws Luna close, her body flush to his like he won’t risk even a thread of space between them. Elias lets out a long, suffering sigh like he’s about to be asked to stand up too fast after a nap.

And I?

I grip Luna’s wrist and let the grin break across my face—sharp, wild, too pleased for the circumstances.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” I murmur, voice low and hot against her ear. “If we die in the space between realms, I promise to haunt you with all the same kinks.”

She rolls her eyes.

But she’s smiling.

We press our palms to the portal together. Magic latches onto us like it’s desperate. The room groans as the stone wall begins to fracture, seams glowing gold, pulling apart with the weight of escape, of everything we’ve clawed our way through. Behind us, Calla screams again, and it’s feral this time—wordless, furious, too late.

Light erupts. The ground vanishes. And I’m falling—we’re falling—through the crack between this world and the next.

The in-between smells like guilt and rotten roses. Like burnt magic and the ghost of old sex. Like everything you didn’t want to remember coming back as scent. It clings to my throat as we fall—drags against my skin like oil-slicked silk, sweet and sour and thick with too many flavors. Dim light streaks past us, slow and endless, like time is breaking into pieces, stretching every second across the arc of this descent.

And yeah, okay, Imightbe a little distracted.

I lift my arm. Sniff once. Sniff twice.

It’s not great.

Definitely not ideal for dimension-hopping first impressions.

Just to be thorough, I twist my body mid-fall and lean toward Luna, who's gripping my hand like she wants to snap all the bones in it but also maybe never let go. She's radiant, windswept, mouth parted in breathless disbelief like some goddess falling from grace, and what do I do?

I sniff her armpit.

In my defense, it’s purely scientific.

Her eyes widen. Her head whips toward me. And then—smack. Her hand slaps across my chest, right over my heart, like she wants to restart it with violence. Which is honestly on-brand.

“What the actual fuck, Silas?” she half-yells, hair whipping across her face like wild threads of storm.

“I had to be sure it wasn’t you,” I call back, grinning like the goddamn menace I am. “It smells like murder and wet socks in here, and you were my prime suspect.”

Elias groans somewhere behind us. “Why do you always ruin serious moments?”

“Because if I don’t, I’ll implode,” I shout. “Emotionally. Spiritually. Possibly orgasmically. No one wants to see what that looks like.”

“Depends who you ask,” Caspian mutters dryly.

“Don’t encourage him,” Riven growls.

“Too late,” I shoot back.

The world around us begins to shift. Color distorts, thickens, flattens. Gravity starts to reassert itself, pulling at my gut, at the edges of our magic. We’re close to the other side—wherever the hell that side is. The runes from the pillar still burn faintly on our skin, the magic tethering us together like an invisible rope drawn tight. We’re not letting go. Not even if the next realm hates us on arrival.

I lean back into Luna’s side, smirking, voice dropping low as our bodies align again mid-fall. “Hey,” I murmur, lips near her ear. “If we die in the landing, just know—your armpit smells divine. Like apocalypse and peach blossom.”

She elbows me in the ribs.

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